Up in Smoke

It is black... pitch black. I am in agony. My upper body is on fire. I can feel the internal damage control going on, leaving me semi-conscious and just a spectator to the valient efforts going on inside me... around me.

"DON'T YOU DIE ON ME, GODDAMN IT... " A familiar voice, just an echo. There is no bright light, but I am waiting for it. I am waiting to die.
I can hear distant gunfire, smell smoke... and burning flesh. Now I am being dragged. Dragged over very rough ground. I am rolled down into a small gully. I can smell damp wood and forest decay. The pain is too great and I am out.

Voices, speaking spanish and english. Running feet, cocking guns, all around me. I can hear all of this and my shallow breathing. There is someone next to me... on me. The spot we are in is cramped, dark, and small. The voices trail off and I try to open my eyes.

A face is pressed against mine, too close to tell who it is. Mitch raises up just slightly and I can see her eyes darting this way and that. She is a bloody mess.
"Mitch?"
A hand immediately clamps down on my mouth and her head presses against my chest. The pain immediately escalates and I am out once again.

The light of day is waining. It is very cold. I am alone, still in the gully with the smell of rotting wood. I have no idea what is going on, where I am, what has happened. There is an eerie silence. So completely deafening that I dwell on the thought that I might have died. I feel no pain, just numbness. I don't attempt to move. I do remember the red hot pain and do not wish to experience it again. No, I will just lay here and enjoy the lack of feeling and rest just a bit.
There is movement above my position... and then Mitch rolls down next to me.

"We need to get going."
"What happened? Where am I?"
"This is going to hurt, but I can't have you passing out this time. I can't get you up the hill and that is just where we have to go." Mitch talks as she sweeps her gaze along the panorama that spreads out before us. I try to focus and then see, in the coming darkness, the growing area far below us. There are dozens of holes in the ground. Now it all comes back.
"LOU?"
"No time... not now. We are still in danger." She shifts to her feet in a cat-like crouch and then starts to pull on me. "Don't you pass out on me, and no screaming."

I can't tell if the scream was internal or I let it out for all to hear, but the pain I would liken to loosing a limb. It tried to pound me into unconciousness, like a red hot sledge hammer on my shoulder and on my head.
"Holy JESUS fucking CHRIST what... " My vision tunnels and speckles of light close the dim light from my eyes.
"Come on, Jake, please stay with me." Mitch's voice is calm and pleading all at once.
I fight the urge to drop out and will my vision back. I bite back on the agony I am feeling and try to match her steps as we ascend the side of the mountain. We plod on, walking into a clearing where there are several bodies.
There, in the middle of the small platue is the Gator, burned beyond recogition. Another piece of the puzzle that I can't quite use to remember the big picture.
Mitch scrambles over to one of the dead and frisks him for weapons. She comes up with a semi-automatic of some kind and sticks it in the waist line of her jeans at the small of her back.

Gunfire... a single shot from across the valley. An expolision that lights up a scene five or six miles away for a moment or two. A smatter of automatic fire is returned, and then another single shot and another explosion.
"At least he is still with us."
"Who?" I look toward the illumination from the fireball and squint to see something, anything.
"Lou... that is my Mauser he is firing."

Oh shit. What has happened. I can't get passed the pain I am feeling. I don't know why and I am afraid to look to see where I am injured. What is left of my shirt is removed and Mitch starts cleaning the gunshot wound just below my collar bone about three inches in from my shoulder.
"Oh... great, just great." My voice runs hollow as she starts to clean the entrance wound. I don't scream out this time, but do feel like I am going to pass out.
"Stay with me, Jake." She dabs at the wound with a piece of semi-clean cloth that she tore from the body of one of Grable's men.
"We need water."

She is on her feet and I close my eyes. My whole body is throbbing and I think I might have pissed myself with that last wound probing she did. Mitch returns with a canteen.
"Whiskey." She says after giving it a sniff. "No wonder his boys can't shoot straight."
"They seemed to do a pretty good job on me."
The canteen is nearly empty and she sparingly rinses the wound. I wince and try to be a man about it, but tears are running down my face from the pain.
"You have an exit wound just below your shoulder blade." She talks now from behind me as she inspects as best she can in the dusklight.
"It must have missed anything big, you aren't bleeding as badly as you were earlier."
"Gee, that is great news."
"Hey, you could have died trying to rescue me like you did. That was very brave." I can hear her tearing strips of cloth.

Ah ha, brave... that was very brave of me. Nope, still nothing.
"What happened back there. I don't remember a thing."
Just then she holds my good shoulder and tells me this is going to hurt. It does. I am out once again, and rightly so. While I am unconscious she stuffs the two long strips of cloth dipped in the whiskey into my entrance and exit wounds. When I come to it is all so unpleasant.

"Motherfucker... that hurts."
"A rifle shot will do that to you. Don't worry, you're going to be okay if we can get you into town to a doctor within the next several hours." She is working with another man's shirt, tearing the bloody portions away and then tying up the ends. Over my head it goes and with another agonizing move she has my arm in the sling. I don't black out this time, wish I had.

"We need to get out of here." She goes to the Gator carcass and examines it.
"So... what the hell happened here?" I stand and waiver... then gain my faculties and take in the carnage.

There are three men on the ground, deader than my Aunt Fannie, a lot of shell casings, the burned out Gator... the back covered in dirt as though someone tried to put out the fire.
"Wait a minute." I say to myself. Like the fog clearing from Utah beach I begin to see and remember. "Holy shit, it must have worked."

Mitch pulls on the burned out emergency brake and it releases. The Gator rolls appropriately. She uses the motion to back it up and turn it. Once she has it aimed where she wants it, she pulls on the brake and it sets. Both back tires are flat, melted off the rims in spots.

"I hoped you got the extended warranty."
She looks at me and smiles, "Still the same Jake. Funny even when your shot through the torso."
"Well, we played hard as kids too, don't forget." I am referring to war games we used to play as kids with those Daisy one cock bb guns. We wore safety glasses... of sorts, but that didn't stop a good face shot.
Mitch rubs her right cheekbone, "That still hurts on a cold day, you son of a bitch."
Her smile fades and she crouches. I don't turn and look, I just crouch too and follow her lead.
She makes it over to the Gator with me in tow. I can see what she sees now, flashlights about two hundred yards off and closing. We lower ourselves onto the remains of the still smoking seats. As we do, behind us there is movement through the brush.

Mitch bails out of the Gator and hits the ground, pistol drawn and ready to fire. It will surely give our position away, but that's water under the bridge if this is one of Grabel's...
"Don't shoot me, hon."
"LOU." Mitch whispers loudly.
He lifts her to her feet and hugs her, then plants a kiss on her. It may not have been what she expected, but it is a second or two before they part.
"Oh my God, are you okay?" She turns him in the darkness and comes up with a smile.
"I'm okay. What about you, Jake."
Before I can respond he slaps me on the shoulder. In the darkness he didn't make out the sling. I am out once again.

I open my eyes to a jarring scene. The three of us are bouncing down the mountain in the Gator carcass, no lights, no engine. Just a bone crushing decent that has us out of our seats as often as in them. I am between the two of them. Mitch is at the wheel and Lou is on my other side. They must have thought it would be the best place for me, but I don't suppose there is any "best" place on this wild ride.

We bounce out of the trees and the Gator immediately finds one of the holes we had dug earlier. It noses in, launching the three of us onto the meadow. I don't black out this time. I do feel as though I have no feeling below my neck, however. It doesn't bother me as much as all of that. No pain, but most likely paralized.

Everything is silent now, not even a cricket dares to chirp. I am on my back looking at the stars... wishing all of a sudden that I was back on that beach on the Sea of Cortez.
"Jake, you okay? That shit working on you?"
I turn my head and look at Lou, his face blackened with soot or something so all you see are wild eyes and teeth.
"What shit is working on me?"
"Morphine, Nancy. One of those guys I dispatched must have been Grabel's doctor or something. He had a full med kit with lancets and everything." He pulls a small bag out of a napsack he has on his back. "If you need some more, I can help with that."
I attempt to move my good arm and hand so it is in front of my face. Yep, there it is. That morphine was working too good.
"Jesus, Lou, how much of this shit did you give me?"
"A couple of doses. You're shot pretty bad. I'm sorry."

I lay there and digest this comment. I try to remember but it is way too sketchy.
"What do you mean... you're sorry?"
"Well, without a test shot or two it is hard to sight in a rifle to a spot that small."
"What the fuck does that... you shot me? YOU fucking shot ME?"
"Now don't get your panties in a bunch." Lou unslings the Mauser and lays it on the ground next to him.
"You shot me... "
"Jesus Christ, do you think I did it on purpose. I was aiming at the cans just like we planned. It's your fucking fault that you didn't move away like I told you in the first place."

It all comes back, like that first drop on a roller coaster. I drove the Gator up from the valley like we were ordered. Lou stayed behind. I told them over the radio that he was too old and had a heart attack, something that would explain why he wasn't with me. They didn't have to buy it. They just had to let me drive up and park in Lou's line of fire. They bought it and I was allowed into their camp.
I remember that we told them to have Mitch untied and ready to go over the radio on my way up there. When I motored into their clearing, they could see the kerosene cans surrounding the duffles.

I stepped off the Gator and told them that Lou was watching. If he didn't see Mitch and me walking away unguarded, he would blow up the Gator. I remember that much. Then I remember Mitch being freed and her taking my hand and running. That is when the first shot rang out. I remember thinking it was them trying to kill us. Then the next shot seconds later took out the Gator and the duffles. As they scrambled to put out the fire we ran into the forest.
"Oh shit." I look at Lou, "She ran me in the wrong direction."
Mitch's eyes grow wide, "Me? I... I'm so sorry. I didn't know what you had planned."
"It's okay... you're okay. That's all that counts."

There was action on the hillside. We were being pursued. It seems that Lou had led them out and away from our position and then made a wide arc to bring them back again. Now they were at our backs so to speak.
"We have to run for it." Mitch says, getting to her feet. The two of them get me on mine and we are running toward the growing shed, protected for now by the cover of night. The meadow is dangerous with all of the holes. We know that the bulk of them are behind us... but they do not. As we make it to the growing shed, we can hear someone wailing. Probably fell into one of the holes and broke his ankle.

They are closing on us. I look through the separations in the wood out onto the meadow. I can see the beams of the flashlights as they play off of the ground looking for holes. Behind me, Lou is pulling the tarps off of the motorcycles.
"Can you ride?"
"They're my bikes, Lou, of course I can ride."
"Good. He needs a doctor."
"We stick together. You two are all I have left."
"No arguement. You take him on the bike and get into town." Lou pulls the rifle off of his back and sets it against the barn. "I am out of rounds so making a diversion is going to be just that much more difficult."
I turn, "They're coming."

Whatever plan Lou was hatching for our escape ends abruptly.
"You are clever, Louis. But too clever for your own good, I'm afraid."
Grablw and his men move quickly into the growing shed. There are only two of Grable's men left standing.
"You have killed most of my men, burned my money, and are causing me to miss particularly interesting show on PBS tonight."
Lou smiles at that last one.
"Oh, but this is not too funny, Louis, especially not for you." He motions to his men and as one of them holds a gun on Mitch and me, the other yanks Lou towards Grable, who slaps a pair of handcuffs on him.

"What, are you going to arrest me, Trooper?"
"Don't be silly. I am going to kill you, nice and slow so I get my million dollars worth out of it."